In a surprise announcement, the Pentagon revealed that it has not been offering an accurate count of how many U.S. troops it has had in Syria, with the actual figure more than double the official count.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has more than doubled the number of its forces in Syria to fight the Islamic State group — a dramatic increase that the Pentagon revealed Thursday, acknowledging that the added troops have been there for months or even more than a year.

The U.S. more than doubled its number of troops in Syria — from 900 to around 2,000 — before the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, the Pentagon said Thursday, publicly disclosing the surge for the first time.

The U.S. for months has had more than 2,000 troops inside Syria, more than double the 900 troops the Defense Department previously said are on the ground there, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson

The Pentagon announced the US currently has “approximately 2,000” troops in Syria, more than double the previously disclosed number of 900, a Defense Department spokesperson said at a press briefing on Thursday.

The Pentagon has revealed that the number of US troops in Syria has more than doubled, now totaling around 2,000 instead of the previously reported 900. In this video, we explore the Pentagon's surprising admission and whether this surge of troops is linked to the recent political upheaval in Syria,

Syrian rebels overtook Damascus and ousted fallen Syrian President Assad. This marked an end to more than 50 years of the Assad family rule that had also seen the recent 14-year-long civil war.

The Pentagon has revealed that the true number of US troops in Syria is more than double what was previously disclosed, as officials make contact with Damascus.

The Media Line's intrepid correspondents are in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan providing first-person reporting. After months of maintaining a much lower troop count, the Pentagon revealed on Thursday that 2,